In a listing posted yesterday, political cartoonist Ted Rall offers to draw a political cartoon on "any subject you want."
The Village Voice released its Comics Issue this week, with an inventive and eye-catching cover done by longtime alt-cartoonist Ward Sutton.
Ted Rall has teamed up with Pablo G. Callejo for The Year of Loving Dangerously, which is based on Rall's experience getting arrested, dumped, expelled and evicted in New York City in 1984. It's Rall's first collaborative effort, and it hits stores next month. "Year is an allegory for the economic collapse, showcasing what can happen to anyone, even a white Ivy-educated male, who suffers a run of bad luck," Rall writes. "It's also a shot across the bow of other male graphic artists who wallow in self-pity and alienation." The Washington Post's Michael Cavna says the book is "a little bit Midnight Cowboy in tone, and part The Graduate."
His position for the syndicate -- editor of acquisitions and development -- has been eliminated. Over the past few years, Rall had successfully brought several alt-cartoonists into the fold at United, including Keith Knight ("The Knight Life") and the Weekly Dig's Tak Toyoshima ("Secret Asian Man"). Rall, who had held the acquisitions job since 2006, says he will still be drawing comics and writing columns for United.
Ted Rall, who is president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists president, has written an open letter to the Overseas Press Club of America president over an increase in the awards entry fee from $150 to $175. Rall accuses the organization of using the fees as a "revenue enhancing" operation at the expense of "beleaguered cartoonists," and says that at least 11 cartoonists will not enter the contest this year. The list includes other alt-cartoonists Mikhaela Reid (The Boiling Point) and Jen Sorensen (Slowpoke).
Rall, whose cartoons and columns appear in many alt-weeklies, took over as president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists on Sept. 12. "For some reason my colleagues have made me president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC), the organization for professional political cartoonists. (I suspect cartoonists' predilection for hard drinking had something to do with it.)," Rall writes in his weekly column. "Kidding aside, I'm honored." V. Cullum Rogers, the cartoonist at North Carolina's Independent Weekly, remains the group's secretary-treasurer, and Mikhaela Reid, whose work appears in Metro Times and other AAN papers, was elected to the group's board of directors.
Ted Rall and Matt Bors, whose strips appear in many AAN papers, are releasing cartoons this week ridiculing Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for returning to their TV shows without making a deal with the striking Writers Guild of America. "The stakes are too high, the issues too important, the hypocrisy too hypocritical for us to just put down our pens and tune in to their union-busting, albeit highly amusing, programs," Rall and Bors say in a joint statement. They both say they will not be available to appear on either The Daily Show or The Colbert Report while the strike remains in effect. "We'd rather fight in Bush's wars than cross a picket line," they say. The cartoons go live today at TedRall.com and MattBors.com.
In a blog post dated Feb. 28, Rall announced that he had raised $21,000 toward legal fees for a potential slander lawsuit against Ann Coulter. In February, Coulter said in a speech and a later column that "in response to the Muhammad cartoons, one Iranian newspaper is soliciting cartoons about the Holocaust. (So far the only submissions have come from Ted Rall, Garry Trudeau and The New York Times.)" Rall wrote in a syndicated column that he had received e-mails calling him "an anti-Semite and anti-American traitor."
Rall, whose award-winning cartoons appear in many AAN papers, including the Village Voice and Washington City Paper, has reached another milestone: becoming a clue in the New York Times crossword puzzle. As noted by Editor & Publisher, the Jan. 20 puzzle featured the clue "editorial cartoonist Rall." On his blog, Rall said, "That really is kind of amazing to this boy from the Ohio burbs. On the other hand, it is a pretty damned hard puzzle."
